This podcast episode focuses on two pieces of European legislation aimed at supporting the low-carbon transition: the EU Taxonomy and the EU Green Bond Standard. Green bonds play an important role in financing the assets needed for the green transition. With the European Green Bond Standard, the EU wants to set a clear standard for green bonds, based on the detailed criteria of the EU taxonomy to define green economic activities. Portfolio Manager Rosl Veltmeijer discusses the ins and outs of both policies and how they work in practice with Esther Griffioen, Deputy head of Policy and Risk Management at the Dutch State Treasury Agency and Jie Chen, Investment Analyst at Triodos Investment Management - covering both the issuers’ and the investors’ side of green bonds.More information about the EU Taxonomy for sustainable activities can be found hereMore information about the EU Green Bond Standard can be found here Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this podcast episode, Karel Nierop discusses what's behind the net zero commitments of the financial sector with Quinten Aubineau, Policy Analyst at bank Track, and Sven Renon, Impact Manager at Triodos Bank.Since the Paris climate agreement, most banks and asset managers have committed themselves to a net zero strategy to be in line with a 1,5-degree global warming scenario. But what does net zero exactly mean? And why is it important for financial institutions to have a net zero strategy in place? Quinten Aubineau explains that having a net zero goal is nice but having a concrete action plan in place to get there is even more important. Sven Renon elaborates on the challenges Triodos Bank is facing on the road to net zero.More information about Triodos Bank's net zero strategy can be found hereMore information about Bank Track can be found here Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this podcast episode, Rosl Veltmeijer discusses the challenges of impact performance reporting with Mike McCreless, Executive Director at Impact Frontiers, and Rebecca Spohrer, Impact Manager at Triodos Investment Management. How to report on impact is a much-debated topic within the impact investing industry. To create a common ground for impact reporting, Mike McCreless's Impact Frontiers have created a set of impact reporting norms, based on a public consultation. Together with Triodos Impact Manager Rebecca Spohrer, Rosl Veltmeijer discusses these norms and how they were developed as well as the general challenges and pitfalls of Impact Reporting.The impact reporting norms from Impact Frontiers can be found here: Impact Performance Reporting Norms Version 1 | Impact Frontiers Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The circular economy is the alternative to our current linear economy, which is founded on growth. We use vast quantities of resources to make things, which we consume and then throw away. This system uses up finite raw materials and produces vast quantities of waste. By 2050, we will be consuming the amount of resources from three planets Earth.Nancy Bocken and Hans Stegeman discuss what is needed to change our current system and what the role of finance therein is. Their main conclusion: As a circular economy goes completely against the logic of our current market economies, which thrive on profit and high turnover, we must fundamentally rethink the logic of markets, including the role of investors therein. Redesigning and rebuilding what we have been building for many years will be very complex and requires a technological, financial, behavioural transformation and new [marker|business models], based on new policies, such as the European Green Deal.However, even if we still have a long way to go, both see promising developments, with circularity becoming more mainstream and scaling up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), which has taken effect in March 2021, was one of the first regulatory initiatives stemming from the 2018 EU Sustainable Finance Action Plan. It is a sustainability-related disclosure framework for financial market participants and financial advisers focusing on the integration of sustainability risk and the consideration of adverse sustainability impact in the investment process. Since the implementation there has been criticism on its effect. In 2023, the European Commission therefor initiated a consultation on the SFDR.  Both the Dutch financial market authority AFM and Triodos IM published a position paper on how to improve the SFDR. In this podcast episode, Portfolio Manager Rosl Veltmeijer discusses the overlap and the differences between the two positions with Zoë du Chattel, Senior Supervision Officer at AFM and Hadewych Kuiper, Managing Director at Triodos Investment Management.One of the conclusions is that both the AFM and Triodos IM are in favor of a minimum level of disclosure for all funds to create a level-playing field and that both would like to convert the current transparency regime into a labelling regime so retail investors can easily see which product is more or less sustainable. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.